"Shared children's stories and rhymes are the foundation of culture. 

The Indigenous Literacy Project not only provides much needed resources to remote communities and promotes the joy of reading in the broader population ... it provides a new generation of Indigenous children with the passion and pride in their stories that I hope will flow to the general community in the form of beautifully written and illustrated books. This project is a real opportunity for all Australians to get involved in a simple, effective and meaningful community activity. I encourage you, your school, your bookclub or your organisation to be involved."

Thérèse Rein's life's work of assisting people into independence through employment grew out of her own personal family experience. After suffering a crippling injury, Thérèse's father was told he would never work - yet he graduated from university, became an aeronautical engineer and raised a family. Inspired by his tremendous courage and determination, Thérèse Rein founded and is managing director of the Ingeus group of companies - an international welfare to work provider which assists unemployed people to find suitable, lasting employment. Thérèse is married to the Hon Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister of Australia.

"When I was growing up, books were everything: the passport to a much wider world than the simple and limited suburban landscape of my childhood.  It is wonderful that the Australian book industry has embraced the Indigenous Literacy Project so warmly.  As more books are placed in avid young hands, who knows what journeys will begin."

Geraldine Brooks is author of the Pulitzer Prize winning and internationally bestselling novel 'March'.  Her first novel, 'Year of Wonders', published in 2001, is also an international bestseller.  Geraldine's latest book 'People of the Book' was published in 2008.

"Imagine a world in which everybody has clean air, fresh water, healthy food, someone to love and someone who loves them, a roof over their head, and, most important of all, a good book to read and the ability to read it ... sure, you might say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one ..."

Andy Griffiths Andy Griffiths is one of Australia’s funniest and most successful writers. His books have sold over 3 million copies worldwide, have featured on the New York Times bestseller lists, and have won over 30 Australian children’s choice awards. Andy's books include the 'Just!' series.

Dr Anita Heiss is a member of the Wiradjuri nation, and is an author, poet, satirist and social commentator. Anita’s published works include the adult novel Not Meeting Mr Right, the historical novel Who Am I? The Diary of Mary Talence, Sydney 1937, kids novel kids novel Yirra and her deadly dog, Demon, poetry collection I’m not racist, but… and non-fiction text Dhuuluu-Yala (To Talk Straight) – Publishing Aboriginal Literature. In 2004 she was listed on the Bulletin /Microsoft ‘Smart 100’. Anita is currently Chair of the Australian Society of Authors.

"There was a time, not so long ago, when people who could not read or write learned all they needed to know of the world by show and tell; by looking hard, asking questions of their elders, and then listening hard to the answers. But that time is past. Today we learn how the world works, and how we work in it, through reading as well as through watching and listening. A lot of the information we need is in books, or in newspapers or magazines, or on the Internet. Even to send an SMS on a mobile phone we need to be able to read. Reading brings the world to us. But reading can also open up a new world of people and events we have never imagined but which we can enter and become part of. This kind of reading takes us out of ourselves into other times and places, into other skins. Reading is a form of magic. It gives us access to a world that has no limits and where everyone is welcome and can be at home".

David Malouf is an acclaimed poet and novelist. David's books include 'Johnno', 'Remembering Babylon', which won the first International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and 'Every Move You Make', which won both The Age Book of the Year Award for Fiction and the Queensland Premier's Literary Short Story Collection Award.

"The Indigenous Literacy Project has helped give voice to a world, given a language an opportunity to reach out to other readers. It has helped make a path to the merging of two worlds, two languages, two people. The ILP is not only an act of charity; it is an act of reconciliation. It is a healing path, which you all have paved.

If you’re going to be a writer you have to come from some place and if you’re going to be a writer you have to be a reader first.  What these literacy programs create are readers first.  In the hope, I hope, of writers next. And these writers will come from some place. Stories from an Aboriginal place, a place that needs more and more voice and more and more ears.".

Tara June Winch is an Indigenous Australian writer.  Her first novel 'Swallow the Air' won the David Unaipon Award for Inidigenous Writers, the Victorian Premiers Literary Award for Indigenous Literature, the NSW Premiers Literary Award for New Writing and the Dobbie Award for Womens first writing.  Tara sits of the Australia Council Board for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts, works as a freelance writer and lives with her darling daughter, Lila on the beach.

Alexis Wright is from the Waanji people from the highlands of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. Her books include 'Grog War', a study of alcohol abuse in the outback town of Tennant Creek, and the novel 'Plains of Promise', which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize, the Age Book of the Year Award and the NSW Premier's Award for Fiction. Her second novel 'Carpentaria' won the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, Best Fiction Book, and the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA), Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year.